Home » News » Contest 1...went off!

So what were the chances of getting warm windy weather, at the start of February, in Ireland, and for the first round of the Irish National Windsurfing Wave Championships?  Well...bigsurf.ie hit the nail on the head, silenced the doubters and delivered an absolutely epic first round to the 2011 Irish Wave Tour!

 

Friday saw a practice session with on average 4.2m sails fully powered up all afternoon, with 6 or 7 relishing in the conditions.  Saturday dawned with the same conditions, cross on, and 4.2m sails...classic Coolmaine conditions as the locals know it.  Pearse kicked off the days competition with the bigsurf bigAIR, running first for the Gold fleet and then for the silver fleet.  Keeping the Silver fleet on their heels, the bigsurf bigEXPRESSION then ran for the Silver, followed by the Gold.  That afternoon saw everybody on the water doing what they do best in a freesailing session. 

 

 

 

 

Performances in both the bigAIR and the bigEXPRESSION were excellent.  Dan Gardiner nailed an absolutely massive jump out the back to take the Gold bigAIR, while Oisin van Gelderen pulled together a string of displays to secure the bigEXPRESSION.  In the Silver fleet, Bartlomiej Furmaniuk nailed the bigAIR with repeated airtime, while Tim O`Laoire took the bigEXPRESSION.

 

Saturday evening was spent in Scannell`s pub in the heart of Clonakilty.  Tired limbs was the most common complaint, but everybody was positively glowing from the days sailing.  One local Cork windsurfer in particular finally showed a face at the event, allbeit handcuffed to the bar in an orange prison jump suit....

 

Sunday morning dawned, again with 4.2 - 4.7m weather out in the bay.  We kicked off the day with a full round of Gold Fleet competition using the heats format.  The curent Irish Wavesailing Champion Rob Jones had no option but to drop out of the competiion due to an injury he sustained over the winter...and true to his form he coordinated the event as beach master for the day, so massive thanks to Rob and a get well soon.  Judges van positioned on the hill, the competiion ran 9 heats, which saw big moves, some kit breakages (hats off to Mark Killeen who ended up rigging everything as the event continued) and a winning result.

 

 

 

Unfortunately by the time the silver fleet competition was run, the wind had dropped off to only 15 knots and despite us running 2 more bigEXPRESSION`s, an official result for the Silver fleet could not be obtained.

 

Other notable performances came from the youths, Fian McCabe, Aodh Kenneddy and Eoghan Cudmore, all on their first ever wave event, Wesley Packham for being the first to venture out on the water on Saturday morning (oink!) and Cormac O`Brien, who not only had a notable performance throughout the heats, but was the only one over the weekend to do cheese rolls!

 

Final results are listed below.  We`d like to thank Maurice Owens and Dave Norman for judging, Rob Jones for Beachmaster and all our sponsors for assisting in the event, bigsurf.ie, Starboard, RRD, Tushingham, MauiSails, Mistral & Simmer.  Roll on Round 2! 

 

 

1st Silver - Bartlomiej Furmaniuk

2nd Silver - Tim O`Laoire

3rd Silver - Thomas Chauvin

1st Gold - Dan Gardiner

2nd Gold - Oisin van Gelderen

3rd Gold - Jeff Cochrane

 

1st Silver - Tim O`Laoire

2nd Silver - Bartlomiej Furmaniuk

3rd Silver - Ralph Ferguson

1st Gold - Oisin van Gelderen

2nd Gold - Dan Gardiner

3rd Gold - Ronan McGuire

 

 

1st - Oisin Van Gelderen

2nd - Mark Killeen

3rd - Ryan O`Leary

4th - Jeff Cochrane

5th - Wesley Packham

5th - Dan Gardiner

6th - Ronan Mcguire

6th - Katie McAnena

7th - Nathan Regan

10th - Cormac O`Brien

11th - Dave Garvey

12th - Brian O`Donnchadha

 

1st Overall - Bartlomiej Furmaniuk

2nd Overall - Ralph Ferguson

1st Lady - Catriona Killeen

1st Master - John Killeen

1st Youth - Eoghan Cudmore

2nd Youth - Aodh Kenneddy

3rd Youth - Fian McCabe